Friday Rate Update

Freddie Mac: Mortgage Rates Slip Down

Freddie Mac reported on Sept. 8 that mortgage rates fell slightly this week after rising last week and that low rates continue to fuel refinances. The average 30-year fixed rate mortgage slipped to 3.44 percent from 3.46 percent a week ago and 3.9 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, the average 15-year fixed-rate mortgage fell to 2.76 percent from 2.77 percent a week ago and 3.1 percent a year ago, and the five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgage dropped to 2.81 percent from 2.83 percent a week ago and 2.91 percent a year ago. "Since the Brexit vote, the refinance share of mortgage activity has remained above 60 percent," said Freddie Mac chief economist Sean Becketti. "As mortgage rates continue to range between 3.41 percent and 3.48 percent, many are taking advantage of the historically low rates by refinancing."

From "Freddie Mac: Mortgage Rates Slip Down"
HousingWire (09/08/16) Ramírez, Kelsey

Meanwhile, at banks *other than* St Casimirs....

Single Women Pay Mortgages More Faithfully Than Men, Yet They Are Charged More

Researchers at the Housing Finance Policy Center of the Urban Institute found that single women default on mortgages less often than men, but they tend to be charged more for their loans and are denied credit more often. Furthermore, the study shows that despite having lower incomes on average than single men, single women tend to make bigger down payments. Researchers found that single women generally present "weaker credit characteristics" at the application stage, so they are more likely to end up with subprime loans. There are concerns about inequity in the system given that single women had statistically lower default rates throughout the study, which encompassed the prime boom years of 2004-2007, the housing bust and global financial crisis from 2008-2010, and the post-recession recovery years of 2011-2014. The researchers wrote, "Given that more than one-third of single women borrowers are minorities and almost half of them live in low-income communities, we need to develop more robust and accurate measures of risk to ensure that we aren't denying mortgages to women who are fully able to make good on their payments."

From "Single Women Pay Mortgages More Faithfully Than Men, Yet They Are Charged More"
Washington Post (09/07/16) Harney, Kenneth R.